How One L.A. School Handles Year-Round

At Haddon Avenue school in Pacoima, the children in the red group are looking forward to a three-week vacation that begins Wednesday.

But for friends in the blue group, Thursday is the start of another nine-week session.

Meanwhile, two other groups of pupils, the greens and the yellows, are in the midst of a school session and will have to wait until November or December for their next break.

It sounds confusing, but the pupils there say it isn’t. In fact, they say they like the frequent schedule changes.

‘You Get More Breaks’

“It’s good because you get more breaks,” said one, Eddy Avila, a sixth grader. “It all adds up to the same time off (13 weeks during the year), but it seems like you’re getting more vacations.”

The frequent vacations also find favor among many teachers. They also say that students, especially the children going home to a non-English speaking home, benefit from having shorter breaks, rather than a three-month summer vacation.

But shifting schedules also cause problems for some teachers who, as often as every three weeks, have to pick up their materials and move to another classroom.

For the last five years, the Haddon Avenue school has operated all year, one of 94 that do so in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Four Groups

“When we went on the year-round schedule, we divided the children into four groups by geographic area,” Principal Albert Roque said. “That way, we kept families together and we kept neighborhoods together.”

Since one group of children--the red, blues, greens or yellows--are always on vacation, the building can accommodate one-third more students.

Interest in year-round schools surged anew last week after school Supt. Harry Handler proposed that all 618 schools in the sprawling district move to year-round operation by 1990. The reason given is that in the neighborhoods circling downtown Los Angeles and in the east San Fernando Valley, schools are already overcrowded, and district officials expect to gain 70,000 students in the next five years.

The city school system has on the drawing boards a $360-million building program designed to construct 16 new schools and enlarge 24 others over five years. But even if completed on time, the district will lack seats for 55,000 students by 1990 unless more buildings are put on year-round operations, according to school officials.

Handler told the school board last week that year-round operation is the only way to create enough extra seats fast enough to keep pace with the explosive growth. The board, which must approve Handler’s proposals, plans to hold public hearings over the next few months to get reaction from parents, teachers and the public.

At the Haddon Avenue school, students and teachers voice a variety of opinions about year-round operation, but it’s easy to get agreement on the biggest problem.

“It’s too hot in the summer,” Jeanna Huerta, another sixth grader, said. “It’s hard to come here then. You feel bad just walking to school.”

“It’s just unbearable in the summer,” teacher Mary Sampson said. “We get kids with nosebleeds, headaches or flushed in the face.”

“In the summer, we just baby-sit for them. You can’t conduct a quality education program under those conditions,” Sonia Uguarte, another teacher, said.

Air Conditioning

Each year since year-round operation began, district officials have promised more air conditioning, but it’s been slow going. Only one of four buildings at the Haddon Avenue school is air-conditioned.

“It will be another four years before all our classrooms are air-conditioned,” Roque said. “We have portable fans in the classrooms, but when it’s 100 degrees outside, that doesn’t help much.”

Because of the heat, Haddon Avenue students were sent home early on eight days during the summer. In each case, the principal told parents the day before that their children would be sent home during the lunch hour the next day.

Contractors are installing air conditioning in a second building at Haddon Avenue, but the work is going on while teachers are trying to teach and students are trying to learn. Though hardly an ideal situation, Roque noted that the school is never closed to permit repairs or renovations.

Air Conditioning

District officials say about two-thirds of the district’s year-round schools have air conditioning, and Handler proposed that the district spend $315 million more to air-condition all district buildings by 1990. Though an enormous sum, it is $500 million less than the cost of constructing enough new schools, he said.

The principal and teachers at Haddon Avenue suggested that the district and community agencies such as the YMCA plan new activities for children whose vacation breaks will occur throughout the year.

Since there are no summer camps or similar activities when these Pacoima children have school breaks, “a lot of them just sit home in front of the TV set for three weeks,” one teacher said.

He said parents and children appear to have adjusted well to the schedule. Only 38 of the more than 1,200 students have opted to be bused to another school that operates on the traditional September-to-June calendar, he said.